MTN. VIEW SEARCH-ENGINE FIRM USING POLITICS TO BUILD BRAND

The Mountain View search-engine giant and its wildly popular video-sharing site, YouTube, can't be missed if you want to be president.

The company's embrace of the 2008 campaign ranges from urging candidates to post videos on YouTube and buying ads on Google to stopping in to be grilled by employees at the Googleplex and giving exclusive YouTube interviews. And next month, Google/YouTube will take another step into presidential politics, co-sponsoring a presidential debate.

As Google positions itself as a virtual election headquarters for 2008, the questionbecomeswhether one of America's most successful companiescan balance its professed civic aims with corporate profits.

It's Google, of course, so it wants both.

Google officials insist their primary goal is to boost voter engagement as it extends its already-dominant brand, while candidates and political observers say it's a worthy pursuit.

Still, questions are coming from some corners about whether a powerful high-tech company is the best platform for promoting political activity. Also, there are calls for more clarity on how YouTube treats controversial political videos after one such video was mysteriously pulled down and then re-posted after complaints.

" "They do it because it's a positive thing and they have a corporate image to protect," he said.

The company's civic outreach is designed to reinforce their corporate activity, he added. "They would like to be a leader in every category. 2008 is about finding ways to use the Internet more effectively and they'll be the beneficiary of it."

There's a lot of money at stake. Campaign spending in the 2008 presidential election could reach a record $1 billion.

Some 21 million Americanshave watched an online political video, a Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyshows. And while TV still reigns,campaign dollars spent on the Internet are expected to far surpass the estimated $12 million presidential aspirants spent online in 2004.

Revenue from ads

Google, which bought YouTube for $1.65 billion last fall, generates most of its $10 billion in annual revenue when advertisers buy ads connected to search terms and other sponsored links. As demand for keywords such as "Clinton" or `Giuliani" increases, the price the advertiser pays for a click on the ad goes up.

Candidates are eager to enter this marketplace.

Consider that 17 declared presidential candidates of the two major parties, encouraged by a YouTube project dubbed YouChoose, have posted more than 900 of their own videos - Iowa dinners, flattering post-debate spin. There's no accurate count of the thousands of election-related videos generated by consumers.

In May, YouTube said it would begin placing ads next to its most popular video clips, and share revenue with the creators.

"This is not primarily about business," said Bob Boorstin, Google's director of corporate and policy communications, who said the company wants citizens to become more informed about politics. The company likens its role to media outlets that cover campaigns and sell ads to some of the people it covers.

"There is a natural tension in any company that does those things," Boorstin said. "We try to maintain a fire wall between the two."

But image and branding is very much part of the equation.

In fact, Boorstin said one of the goals behind YouTube's co-sponsorship with CNN of an upcoming Democratic debate and a later one for Republicans, is to "get a more serious side of YouTube shown."

Candidate spoofs

The site is better known for fun spoofs such as the John Edwards' "Feeling Pretty" video and a critical spot about Hillary Rodham Clinton, harking back to an Apple Computer ad from 1984.

The most aggressive pursuer of the political audience, Google has assembled a team of ex-presidential campaign staffers and Washington insiders, including a few who previously worked for Al Gore, a Google senior adviser. They meet regularly to pitch new ideas, help campaigns understand advertising tools, and set up video interviews.

Peter Leyden is the director of the New Democratic Institute, a San Francisco think tank that encourages progressives to adopt the new, if unproven, tools.

Leyden said Google is "acting very responsibly about the power they have."But he raised a question. "Does the person who sells ads online edit videos pro and con of the candidates?"

Boorstin said those roles are separated. Candidates who stop by headquarters for employee forums are not pitched to advertise, but if they ask to see some specific Google application, Google will demonstrate it.

More transparency

There have been a few instances that have prompted calls for more transparency, including YouTube's April decision to remove an unflattering video of Republican candidate John McCain. Vague federal digital copyright law and unclear corporate policies about when complaints warrant a video removal have led some free speech advocates to question if controversial videos are being pulled down for legitimate reasons, or not.

A video, believed to be shot with a cell phone at a campaign stop showing Arizona Sen. John McCain at a South Carolina stop singing "Bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys song "Barbara Ann," mysteriously disappeared from YouTube. It was re-posted, after protests from users and the liberal activist group MoveOn.org, which was planning an anti-McCain campaign around the video.

YouTubewould only say at the time that it had been "mistakenly removed."

Steve Grove, YouTube news and elections editor, would not elaborate in a recent interview. But he defended the site as revolutionizing tired campaign sloganeering by encouraging "much more authentic political dialogue" than the old top-down model of a 30-second TV ad.

Even so, Ben Smith, a senior writer for the politics Web site Politico, said, "The criticism has been that they are too fast to respond with a reaction to immediately remove the stuff" when hit with a complaint.

"The cup is 99 percent full," Smith added. "But there is the 1 percent. At this point, it's a quite secretive process."

Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org, applauded YouTube's role in opening up political dialogue, but warned, "You don't want to develop a town hall that arbitrarily kicks people out."

Google officials say they are keenly aware of their responsibility.

Still others question why a search-engine company, which became famously successful by developing the most efficient method yet to lead consumers directly to products and information, seeks such a high-profile role in politics.

"I don't think the people at Google are bad," author Andrew Keen said. "They're just not the people I want to turn to, computer scientists who created a brilliant algorithm, to rebuild or renew our civic culture," said Keen who takes a critical look at what online culture has wrought in his book "The Cult of the Amateur." "They just accumulated this enormous power almost by accident."

Campaign consultant

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who in the past has been a major financial supporter of Democratic candidates, often sounds as much like a campaign consultant than a CEO as he evangelizes about his company.

"Seize the medium now," or be undone by it, he told a forum of online enthusiasts, including campaign consultants, last month.

Take video of everything you do and post it online, he urgedcandidateswho are looking for ways to spread their messages and counteract those who "cut and paste" unflattering elements into their own YouTube videos.

Of course, there may be another aim: The more YouTube video there is to watch or re-edit, the more people will come to the site - just as it's making a serious launch into advertising.